Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[lafrisbee]

Elon, of course.

No not elon...what just prior to ever coming in contact with him or his philosophy opened onto elon then?

 

[lafrisbee]

Chet drove his Plaid S through over four feet or water just to see what it would do. He had to put over 7000lbs of iron in the vehicle to get it to sink.
He did it just to "wow" his viewers. yes you can be an ol grump, and get upset about ruining blahblahblah. But he gives a great bear to bull video by talking about it...

 

[Gigapress]

Wow that’s earlier than mr money moustache.

As a matter of fact, I copied almost everything MMM advises. I've read every article on that website. Biking, cooking, using my own barbell weightlifting equipment, living with friends, not going to bars and concerts often like my peers, buying cheap smartphones two years behind the latest, avoiding insurance (mostly), delaying wardrobe upgrades, etc is what left me with enough capital at 24 to parlay into a massive bet on TSLA that now at 27 has granted me financial freedom for life.

Additionally, this lifestyle gave me the confidence that I could easily live a pretty fun life on annual spending that is supposedly below the poverty line in Seattle, which minimized the downside risk of this aggressive investment strategy. Much like a cockroach, I don't need much to survive so I'm hard to kill. For example, playing basketball in the park has amortized costs of like 10 cents per hour, but it's one of my favorite activities. I could be homeless and still do it. Systematic optimization makes everything easier in life.

I also am obliged to extend great thanks to the amazing financial aid grants that gave me a debt-free Vanderbilt degree, and for being born a healthy white male in the USA middle class. Nothing impressive about that part of the story.

 

[JRP3]

IMO no reason why LFP can't be made in 4680 format.

True but I expect all 4680 capacity to be used for higher density cell chemistries for a long time. LFP can be made safely in pouch/prismatic format while NCA cannot.

 

[M|S|M MYP]

Remember to use a coupon !

Free fries in the app....not that i eat there all the time

 

[Tronguy]

Sorry... FTFY:

10^7 = 10*10*10*10*10*10*10 = 10,000,000
10^8 = 10*10*10*10*10*10*10*10 = 100,000,000

e is a number, e≈2.718 so you can see what you wrote above doesn´t make sense.

e (mathematical constant) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sometimes 10^7 is written as 10e7 (10 with an exponent of 7), I guess this is where you´re coming from.

Argh. Yes, "e" is a number. And if one is playing around with exponential decays and such (f(t) = 4.5u(t)(1-e**(-t/tau)) ) then, yeah, we use good old e.

But, looking in my handy copy of Kernighan and Ritchie, if one wants to print a floating point number, one does something like
printf("%e %f %g\n", x, y, z);
where x is printed with a syntax that looks like 3.33E23, f is printed like 2354.23, and g is printed somewhat similarly to the "e" format. I'll have to wait until I get home and break out my FORTRAN 77 manual.
Conclusion: Theoretical math and computer science use the same letters for different things.
And that's my last contribution to the subject, unless the value of Tesla stock gets to the point where we have to start using scientific notation to describe the value since there's not words for large numbers beyond an octillion or so.

 

[Webeevdrivers]

What a crazy day.
my dad passed away this morning after 6 months of recurring gastric cancer.
my anesthesiologist was day trading PHUN while I was doing rotator cuff repairs and trapezectomies, he bought 50k and sold with 500k profit in one day. He bought in November, sold at $18, bought back at 6 and sold at 12 for a 550k profit on his TFSA, all this while doing perfect regional blocks for my patients. I didn’t even know it was possible for a stock to do +1200% in a single day.View attachment 724415

and TSLA closed above $900 even with a call wall at $900.

what is going on? The world is upside down.

at least I have next week off to recover.

Sorry to hear about your dad.

 

[MC3OZ]

And the implications of this are CraZy
because they're targeting about a 0.7 mile per day boring speed as the "medium-term goal".

There are currently 6.5E7 miles of road on our planet. (Some of these are multilane, but Loop with autonomy will support at least triple typical passenger throughput per lane.) A fleet of 1E4 TBMs each drilling let's say 2E2 miles per year each is 2E6 miles per year. This fleet could match the scale of the legacy road network in just 3E2 years. Revise downward with more machines or faster drilling. The main questions are 1) Could they actually build 10,000 TBMs with a factory for mass production? and 2) Is this scalable in this way where they can truly all be working in parallel? 3) What actually *is* the optimal number of TBMs?

Bibliography

List of countries by road network size - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Prufrock — The Boring Company

www.boringcompany.com

IMO the main problems with living in a city are:-

• Traffic congestion.
• Finding parking, paying for parking.
• Crowded public transport.
• A lack of green space.
• Exhaust fumes.,
• Noise..

A city with an extensive Boring Co tunnel network, with Robotaxis which turns some parking areas into recreational green space, should be a more livable city than one that doesn't.

Like Tesla the key to Boring Tunnel adoption is customers/cities trying the product, customer riding in Teslas helps...

Then it is just a matter of ROI on the tunnels themselves, they should be long life assets with low maintenance, less maintenance than surface roads, especially if Boring co applies first principles thinking to ensuring a low maintenance tunnel and keep iterating on that.

Livable cities are great for the planet, because it means we can preserve or restore more wild areas outside cities..

 

[Prunesquallor]

Anyone can create a new thread, doesn’t need to be done by a mod. And after a long evening of ‘Bond, James Bond’ there’s so many pages to sift through that I have no clue what needs to be moved.

I thought that movie rocked. My wife was upset with the ending, but I thought it was perfect. I’m deleting every non-Craig Bond movie except Thunderball.

 

[AudubonB]

What a crazy day.
my dad passed away this morning after 6 months of recurring gastric cancer.
my anesthesiologist was day trading PHUN while I was doing rotator cuff repairs and trapezectomies, he bought 50k and sold with 500k profit in one day. He bought in November, sold at $18, bought back at 6 and sold at 12 for a 550k profit on his TFSA, all this while doing perfect regional blocks for my patients. I didn’t even know it was possible for a stock to do +1200% in a single day.View attachment 724415

and TSLA closed above $900 even with a call wall at $900.

what is going on? The world is upside down.

at least I have next week off to recover.

We extend our deepest sympathies to you and your family over your Dad's passing. We hope you can fondly remember great times you had with him and share amongst yourselves some wonderful, warm and funny moments over your time with him.

 

[Skipdd]

Anyone can create a new thread, doesn’t need to be done by a mod. And after a long evening of ‘Bond, James Bond’ there’s so many pages to sift through that I have no clue what needs to be moved.

It occurred to me after I posted that this might be the response - I will do so now. Thanks for your service (not being facetious). As for moving any posts there, pretty sure I don’t have those privileges... so we will just start anew.

 

[heltok]

We live in a time were bubble-think disinformation mediated by social media is literally an epidemic crisis. It's very important for society to understand how bubble-think works so as to safeguard from it. For instance, TSLAQ is an information bubble and exists at a social level, not individual level. I know at least one person, a co-worker, who was taken in by TSLAQ and lost a lot of money shorting Tesla. As an individual he has come to realize that shorting Tesla is a really dumb idea and he has moved on with his life. TSLAQ as a social bubble, however, rolls right along as if nothing has been learned. That is, people like my co-worker, who wake up to reality, are not really welcome to voice that within TSLAQ circles. Indeed, they are often driven out. So as someone moves past the cognitive limitations of TSLAQ what they have learned is ejected from the bubble. The bubble retains as much ignorance as it had before people like my co-worker woke up to reality. The issue is whether the the bubble can attract new uninformed members as quickly as members wise up and exit the bubble. If so, the bubble can persist a very long time. Additionally, those who remain the longest with the bubble are likely the least cognitively equipped person or otherwise motivated participants in disinformation, e.g., paid shills.

So is TMC a social bubble? Perhaps. Some of the dynamics are similar. Members with divergent views tend not to stick around for long. Certainly we have had notable members who have "woke up" to how Elon Musk cannot be trusted, poor Tesla service will destroy the company, etc. It is actually a healthy sign that we have these debates from time to time. At any rate, we cannot rule out the possibility that TMC could become a social bubble which is unhinged from reality. I do not believe this is presently the case however. The basic epistemological question we must always ask ourselves is, how would I know if I were wrong? Is there any external source of information that could persuade me that Tesla is on the wrong track? Indeed there are. We pour over SEC filings and other statements from Tesla. These are external sources of information. If Tesla were on the wrong path as evidenced by say quarterly filings, would we be able to modify our views of Tesla a going concern? I believe that for most of us the answer is yes. Personally, my investment thesis is based on Tesla being able to sustain 50% annual growth on average over many years. We see in Q3 that Tesla is able grow revenue 57% y/y, gross profit 77%, and deliveries 73%. So by multiple metrics we get robust confirmation that Tesla is indeed growing by about 50% annually. Had any of these metrics been below 40%, most of us would be very concerned and would have robust debate about whether this is just a short-term issue to be resolve in the coming year. If two-year or three-year growth were to slow below 40% CAGR, I think many of us would be able to admit that Tesla is no longer the growth engine it once was. We'd have to change our investment thesis away from one that was based on assumed 50% growth. (Tesla may still be a very good investment even with slower growth or not.) This is all quite intellectually healthy. I believe that TMC will be able to navigate such changes in the investment theses we hold.

On the other hand, TSLAQ seems unable to do this. Do they read the quarterly reports? Yes, many do. But is this for them an external source of credible information? Sadly, no. They do not view any statements from Tesla as credible. They operate with a hermeneutic of suspicion regarding Tesla's management. That is, they believe that management is trying to deceive them and the public at every turn. Hoaxes! Lies! Fraud! So when Tesla reports 73% growth in deliveries, they immediately hold that information is suspicion. The discount this in any number of ways. It might be an accounting trick. It might be cover for some worse fraud or deception. And on and on. This sort of cynical, undisciplined hyper-skepticism is really a form of disinformation. Essentially, it gives license to bubble-think members to utterly disregard Tesla as an external inform source. TSLAQ as group appears to lack any ability to take in external information without transforming it into their own disinformation. Even losing billions shorting Tesla is transformed into disinformation when they console themselves that the market price for Tesla is just a bubble, which ought to burst sometime soon. Again the less cognitively impaired ones will take their losses and walk away from the TSLAQ bubble, but those who remain will have learned nothing. Indeed those who remain will embraces increasingly bizarre delusions to suppress psychologically and sociologically all information contrary to their collective bubble-think.

Now are there Tesla bears who are not part of TSLAQ? I would hope so. We genuinely need there to be well informed participants who scrutinize Tesla. For such a person to be worth listening to, they have be willing to take SEC filings and other external sources of information at face value. They really ought to have genuine respect for Elon Musk and be willing to believe what Tesla's management has to say. Indeed Musk and Tesla's management generally often have many critical things to say about the company. If you listen carefully you will hear what risks management is aware of and probably mitigating in someway. There is little reason for cognitively competent bull and bears to disagree on what the real risks are. The substantial disagreement is on how likely and severe these risks may be and how likely management will be able to mitigate or work around these risks. For example, management is clear that Tesla is facing supply chain problems. This is real risk that both bulls and bear need to understand and accept. The bear could argue that these supply chain risks are too high and could imperil Tesla's future. Fair enough, bulls can also look at those same risks and conclude that management will work through those risks with agility and that the balance sheet is strong enough to financially sustain these headwinds. In confronting real risks, any of us can be bullish or bearish to some extent. And it is particularly healthy for investors to be able to acknowledge our doubts and worries as well as the reasons why we accept the risk/reward profile of the investment. My own opinion is that TMC is a place were we can process both beliefs and doubts regarding Tesla in a health, constructive and adaptive manner.

Cheers!

A few years ago I was a less of a Tesla bull than I am now. I found the very polarized camps regarding the expected value of TSLA fascinating and indicated an opportunity to make money if I could figure out what side was right. So I read a lot of bull and bear posts and tried to reformulate the arguments and see what counter arguments I got. But I really struggled to find any bear that I had what I thought to be good arguments. Almost all the bears were fishing for arguments, had very little real life experience of driving Teslas or talking with owners and arguments would be all over the place. Often they would loud and argumentative and doing Gish gallops as a way of winning the debate rather than to try to find out how the world was or what would happen.

So the more I tried to get bears to clarify their reasonings, the more bullish I became. If you listen to for example a debate between Rob Mauer and GoJo, you will hear that Gordon talks a lot, moves between topics very quickly and generally sounds very desperate, while Rob is relaxed and confident, talks about each point in turn. We live in a political climate where the GoJo types win elections, which is sad, but they generally are wrong about factually describing reality or prediction the future.

Look at GoJo now, he is predicting 1.5M deliveries for 2021 while claiming that Tesla is not growing. Clearly he will need to confuse his listeners a lot to win that argument. But a bull that is claiming that Tesla is growing and just cites the numbers from previous years and makes a prediction based on just extrapolating current production numbers and adding a little capacity can make that argument without confusing any listeners and without being too upset about any disagreement. No need to use ad hominems, Gish gallops or interrupting to make your case.

So when you are trying to decide if TMC or TSLAQ is a cult, which is a valid sanity check to do now and then, imo don’t only look at the arguments, also look on the form they are being delivered. Are the posters calm and relaxed, are the arguments clear and to the point etc. You would never see a physics professor being upset that his student have alternative viewpoints and start yelling at them, but you will see freshman students being upset with their biology professor for having non-popular viewpoints. The person throwing poop is generally wrong.

 

[Prunesquallor]

And the good news just keeps rolling in.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1451696489437319176

 

[Beltsbear]

I also think that there is a good chance TBM (Tunnel Boring Machines) are eventually made in a factory with a reasonably fast production rate.

• 1 TBM per week?
• 10 TBMs per week?
• 100 TBMs per week?

One TBM size or perhaps 3 sizes, with smaller sizes sold to those undergrounding utilities. Underground HVDC being one application. Mineral exploration mapping an underground seam is another application.

Will the Boring co eventually own

• 5-10 TBMs?
• 50-100 TBMs?
• 500-1000 TBMs?

If machines can operate with minimal supporting staff a large number can be working on muiltiple projects in parallel world wide.

It is hard to know how big Boring co can get, but a factory making TBMs at least at the rate on 1 per week always seemed likely to me.

Tbms are almost certainly made with model 3 motors or an in house design. they might only target one a month a first, but they might do Vegas with ten machines in the end. It will be unlike other projects, it will go fast. I wish I could buy stock!

 

[CHGolferJim]

IMO the main problems with living in a city are:-

• Traffic congestion.
• Finding parking, paying for parking.
• Crowded public transport.
• A lack of green space.
• Exhaust fumes.,
• Noise..

A city with an extensive Boring Co tunnel network, with Robotaxis which turns some parking areas into recreational green space, should be a more livable city than one that doesn't.

Like Tesla the key to Boring Tunnel adoption is customers/cities trying the product, customer riding in Teslas helps...

Then it is just a matter of ROI on the tunnels themselves, they should be long life assets with low maintenance, less maintenance than surface roads, especially if Boring co applies first principles thinking to ensuring a low maintenance tunnel and keep iterating on that.

Livable cities are great for the planet, because it means we can preserve or restore more wild areas outside cities..

How long will it take to justify replacing all the old decrepit subway systems in the world? NYC? London? Etc.

 

[traxila]

What a crazy day.
my dad passed away this morning after 6 months of recurring gastric cancer.
my anesthesiologist was day trading PHUN while I was doing rotator cuff repairs and trapezectomies, he bought 50k and sold with 500k profit in one day. He bought in November, sold at $18, bought back at 6 and sold at 12 for a 550k profit on his TFSA, all this while doing perfect regional blocks for my patients. I didn’t even know it was possible for a stock to do +1200% in a single day.View attachment 724415

and TSLA closed above $900 even with a call wall at $900.

what is going on? The world is upside down.

at least I have next week off to recover.

My condolences for your Father.

Life unto you and your family.

He is in a better place.

 

[Gigapress]

A city with an extensive Boring Co tunnel network, with Robotaxis which turns some parking areas into recreational green space, should be a more livable city than one that doesn't.
...
Livable cities are great for the planet, because it means we can preserve or restore more wild areas outside cities.

Somewhat OT plans for World Domination Optimization.
On top of this, I hope that we can eventually decommission most surface highways and turn them into nationwide bike/hike trail networks. Here in the Seattle area, we have already done this with old railroad lines. Why ship people or cargo on surface asphalt at 70 mph when they can Loop, Hyperloop, fly or orbit, with ground speed of 150, 600, 550 or 16,000 mph respectively?



The health of many ecosystems depends of having a large contiguous patch of wild land. Many apex predators are keystone species that require enormous territories. Also, many species need uninterrupted migration routes. Slicing highways through our wildlife reserves is a necessary evil for now, but this technology could be obsolete within our lifetimes.

 

[Skipdd]

A few years ago I was a less of a Tesla bull than I am now. I found the very polarized camps regarding the expected value of TSLA fascinating and indicated an opportunity to make money if I could figure out what side was right. So I read a lot of bull and bear posts and tried to reformulate the arguments and see what counter arguments I got. But I really struggled to find any bear that I had what I thought to be good arguments. Almost all the bears were fishing for arguments, had very little real life experience of driving Teslas or talking with owners and arguments would be all over the place. Often they would loud and argumentative and doing Gish gallops as a way of winning the debate rather than to try to find out how the world was or what would happen.

So the more I tried to get bears to clarify their reasonings, the more bullish I became. If you listen to for example a debate between Rob Mauer and GoJo, you will hear that Gordon talks a lot, moves between topics very quickly and generally sounds very desperate, while Rob is relaxed and confident, talks about each point in turn. We live in a political climate where the GoJo types win elections, which is sad, but they generally are wrong about factually describing reality or prediction the future.

Look at GoJo now, he is predicting 1.5M deliveries for 2021 while claiming that Tesla is not growing. Clearly he will need to confuse his listeners a lot to win that argument. But a bull that is claiming that Tesla is growing and just cites the numbers from previous years and makes a prediction based on just extrapolating current production numbers and adding a little capacity can make that argument without confusing any listeners and without being too upset about any disagreement. No need to use ad hominems, Gish gallops or interrupting to make your case.

So when you are trying to decide if TMC or TSLAQ is a cult, which is a valid sanity check to do now and them, imo don’t only look at the arguments, also look on the form they are being delivered. Are the posters calm and relaxed, are the arguments clear and to the point etc. You would never see a physics professor being upset that his have alternative viewpoints and start yelling at them, but you will see freshman students being upset with their biology professor for having non-popular viewpoints. The person throwing poop is generally wrong.

I've created an OT thread for exploring the subject of Social Bubbles more deeply. Here is the link for those that would like to read and/or contribute.

Social Bubbles

@jhm @jbcarioca @Gigapress @heltok Probably missed a couple of folks - pls help me reach the other interested parties. I will post the link to this thread as a response to heltok's most recent response. For those starting in anew to this thread. @jhm posted a very informative note on the...

teslamotorsclub.com

 

[Gigapress]

Tbms are almost certainly made with model 3 motors or an in house design. they might only target one a month a first, but they might do Vegas with ten machines in the end. It will be unlike other projects, it will go fast. I wish I could buy stock!

Only one way to make your wish come true. You know what to do.

Careers — The Boring Company

www.boringcompany.com

 

[Chunky Jr.]

What a team! This is what the loyal season ticket holders have been waiting for and knew would happen, even during their prolonged slump. 9 out of last 10 and 34-11 since Aug 20th. A season high 18 games over 0.500. The new draft picks from Austin and Berlin are almost ready to be called up to the big club and then the home team will really soar. Coach Elon has this team playing really well.

Today
Score:	909.68
Margin of W/L:	15.68
Attendance:	22,880,835
High - Low:	19.04
Season
Record:	111-93
Total margin of wins:	1,734.28
Total margin of losses:	-1,530.27
YTD gain/loss:	204.01	28.91%
Price/52 week high	100.0%
Best Win:	110.58	Mar 9
Worst Loss:	-68.83	Jan 11
Last 10:	9-1
Streak:	W4
Avg margin of victory:	15.62
Avg margin of defeat:	-16.45
Avg Attendance:	19,372,050
Avg Attendance of Last 10:	18,798,610
Avg High - Low:	29.06
Avg H - L of Last 10:	18.38